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Perhaps you'd be surprised to see which member of city council voted to add the most new spending to the 2014 budget, or which voted to add the least.

Then again, perhaps not.

A vote-by-vote analysis completed at the end of council's initial consideration of the 2014 operating budget shows Ward 3 Coun. Dan McCreary as the stingiest voter on council, with Ward 5 Coun. Marguerite Ceschi-Smith voting to spend the most.

There is a $326,530 spread between the two points. Each majority vote by council as a whole added up to $276,717 added to the tax budget, not including an additional $307,500 taken out of two reserve funds to fund two projects. The vote on those two items carried unanimously.

Perhaps it should include that amount since reserve funds are built off of taxes you've already paid that haven't yet been spent.

Those with good memories may remember council had staff members do this very tracking and calculation a few years ago, as the 2012 budget was being pulled together. It came forward at McCreary's request along with the request that all city council estimates committee meetings be televised on RogersTV.

“Councillors have known the public is watching. The meetings have been on TV, (the public) has seen the discussions," McCreary said in December 2011, after the first cut on the 2012 budget was complete. “I don't think I'm off base when I say that between the voting matrix and the televised meetings we saved 1% on taxes.”

This wasn't done by staff members as part of the 2013 budget process and to-date has not been compiled or posted for the 2014 budget — aside from the analysis I completed.

That spread is a little narrower this year. The difference between the $1,057,621 in requests council was asked to consider and the $276,717 it approved is smaller than the $1.19 million McCreary claimed was saved on the 2012 budget. It's also a figure that could still change after a final decision on $205,231 in requests from public delegations was put off until an ad-hoc committee can recommend a policy on how to consider requests for operational expenses such as wages and benefits.

It also allows us to see inconsistencies of a sort.

Only McCreary voted against increasing the waste management budget to add both collection of garbage from yet-to-be-installed collection points in the downtown, as well as extending a pilot project to collect waste and recyclables from within not-for-profit town-home developments instead of from the curbside of the nearest public roadway.

Six other members — councillors Jan Vanderstelt, Vince Bucci, John Utley, Debi Dignan-Rumble, Richard Carpenter and David Neumann — voted for one of those extra measures but not the other.

I would expect I may have just provided councillors — current and any candidates for future — with a political tool to use against their opponents on fiscal matters.

That's not the reason why I did the work. It is a tool to look at who supported what and provide a heightened level of accountability on the 2014 budget and see how your council voted to spend your money. It's your choice on whether to hold them to account for it.

View it for yourself— it'll be embedded with this article on our website, but is also available in a standalone format at http://bit.ly/BtfdBudget.